Texas Rangers: Cole Hamels Last Start Of The Regular Season
The Texas Rangers will finish their series against the Milwaukee Brewers Wednesday by rolling out team ace Cole Hamels to the mound. Hamels last game resulted in another A.L. West Clinching win and looks to continue to fine tune his stuff just before the playoffs.
Cole Hamels will be going for his 16th win through 32 starts while only recording 5 losses in those 2016 games. He has undoubtedly been the teams “Ace” and will start the first game of the playoffs for these Texas Rangers. Hamels has had difficulties with his walks this year by currently ranking 8th in MLB with no one else in the top 10 having 15+ wins except Jake Arrieta at the 10 spot.
If Hamels is able to go 6.1 innings in this game then he will hit the 200 innings pitched mark for the 8th time in his career. Not only that but he is also only 6 strikeouts away from having 200 on the season which only 11 other pitchers have over that mark this year. Possibly the most important thing would be that the Texas Rangers would keep their spot atop the A.L. if he delivers a win.
It appears that the popular lineup of regular starters will be on the field for the Rangers against the Brewers and there are two players to keep an eye on at the plate. Rougned Odor is currently on 4/37 over his last 10 games and is currently on an 0 for 22 streak. Odor will be needed during the playoffs at some point to provide a pivotal hit.
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The other player would be Mitch Moreland who is 5/33 over his past 10 games. Moreland has been known as a streaky player and obviously this is not the streak the Rangers want him to be on. The positive thing to think of is that he is just getting this bad streak out before an unbelievable positive one just in time for the playoffs.
The Texas Rangers would have to win their last 4 games in order to beat the franchise win record of 96 that was posted by the 2011 team. Something to watch within those 4 games would be if the bullpen is able to record 2 wins which would give them the MLB record for most wins by a bullpen within a year, currently held by the 1953 Brooklyn Dodgers at 41.
A discussion has begun if the Rangers should position themselves to face the Cleveland Indians in the first round instead of going for the 1 seed and facing the wildcard game winner. Who would you like to see the Texas Rangers play round 1?
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